Daniel 5 Footnotes

5:30 Xenophon mentions that Babylon’s Medo-Persian invaders “avenged themselves upon the wicked king” (Cyropaedia 7.5.32), meaning they executed Belshazzar.

5:31 According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, Babylon fell to the Medo-Persians on the sixteenth of the month Tishri, in the autumn of 539 BC. The Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon supply fascinating details about Babylon’s fall. The Nabonidus Chronicle and the Cyrus Cylinder both agree with Daniel that Babylon was captured without a major battle and that the citizens readily accepted Persian rule (6:1-3).